


It's Me, John.

by Coffee_Flavored_Kisses



Category: Sherlock (TV), johnlock - Fandom
Genre: M/M, Sherlock's return
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-12
Updated: 2013-11-12
Packaged: 2018-01-01 08:12:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,065
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1042456
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Coffee_Flavored_Kisses/pseuds/Coffee_Flavored_Kisses
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock comes home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	It's Me, John.

Take a breath. Deep breath. In, then out. In, then out. You can do this.  
John clenches his trembling fists at his sides and steadies himself before he walks those steps to the place where it all began. No, they hadn’t met here. They hadn’t had every adventure here. But it was here that John first realized what friendship in its rawest form truly was. It was here that John witnessed Sherlock in his element, the Sherlock no one else saw. Pensive Sherlock. Quiet Sherlock. Sherlock who wasn’t showing off. Sherlock who could just be Sherlock while John could just be John.  
This is 221B Baker Street.  
He had only reached the fourth step before the creaks flashed back reminders of every time he’d returned from the shop with milk, finding Sherlock seated with a paper or mixing mystery chemicals in beakers or lying quietly with his eyes closed as he perused his mind palace. John didn’t know whether to smile or cry when he finally reached the top.  
My god, nothing had changed.  
A smiling face that had always been slightly unnerving seemed to welcome John back. Along the smile, distinct holes from bullets pierced through, and John remembered. He remembered everything.  
He’d never really forgotten.  
Even though they had rented this flat together, it had always been Sherlock’s home. It was Sherlock’s headphones on the taxidermy, Sherlock’s knife still stuck into the wood of the mantle, Sherlock’s boxes of god-knows-what papers lined along the walls, tucked behind furniture so as not to be immediately obvious to a guest. It was Sherlock’s scent still in his bedroom, the scent of labs and wool and masculinity. It was a distinct scent John couldn’t quite place, but it was distinct. It was unique. It was most pleasing at this particular time.  
John wondered whether he should be so daring as to open the refrigerator door. Surely Mrs. Hudson would have cleaned it out by this point; still, John decided not to check. 3 years is a long time, and the curiosity just couldn’t justify any negative results he might encounter.   
Why had he come here? He couldn’t quite remember at the moment. Why now, after 3 years and countless sleepless nights of tears and misery and terror as he remembered the monster who’d taken his genius friend? Moriarty was dead, but the fear had never been so alive as it was to John at 3 in the morning. No, he couldn’t think about that now. He had just recently began seeking help again, and he’d been doing well. Moriarty is dead, John. Stop thinking about him.  
But Sherlock was dead, too. Yet the doctor could not get the man out of his mind. In that case, however, he didn’t want to. Sherlock was anything but a monster. He couldn’t be a monster if he tried.  
Ah, yes. He remembered that he had come for Sherlock’s laptop. There was a host of unfinished cases filed within, and former clients had recently asked to have those cases reopened. John didn’t think he would be any help, not the kind that Sherlock could have been, anyway, but he promised he’d take a look. And John Watson always keeps his promises.  
He searched through every space and surface where Sherlock had ever kept it, making sure he disturbed as little as possible. He assumed Mrs. Hudson would have cleared this place out ages ago, but here it all was. Clearly she had kept it for John to tend to, and John certainly had no intentions of moving Sherlock’s things. Not now. Maybe not ever.  
Finally he found it on Sherlock’s bed. It rested on the pillow as if Sherlock were going to return to it after a coffee break. He smiled as his fingers traced along the top, thick dust curling immediately under his fingertips when he began to lift it. And underneath, the pillow held the distinct outline of the computer where it used to show the outline of the head that lay there each night.  
John sat down and placed his hand inside the impression. The great mind that rested here was gone now. Gone forever, never to return despite the prayers.  
Suddenly John heard a noise upon the stairs, and he recognized the familiar pattern of the steps. No, it couldn’t be! His mind was playing the cruelest of tricks on him, and he shook his head as if that could take away the heart-wrenching pain, the torment of the beast inside, the illusion that somehow his friend might be returning after all this time.  
I’ve been here too long, he thought. This place is haunting me, and I have to go. I have to go now.  
He bolted for the door, tucking the laptop neatly under his arm. Keeping his head down, he rushed through the living room and to the stairs. He would never come back here. This had all been a huge mistake.  
But suddenly his steps were halted by something. Someone. No, something. This wasn’t a person – not a real person. This was a trick, an illusion, a ghost, a…  
… A consulting detective in a long black coat and blue striped scarf.  
“Hullo, John.”  
John’s legs began to tremble right there, and as he almost fell, he dropped the laptop and it fell to the bottom of the stairs. Surely it was broken now, but he didn’t care. Oh god, nothing mattered anymore! Nothing but escaping from this… this… this demon!  
He turned to run back up, but still the voice kept calling his name. “John! John, it’s me! John! Stop running!”  
“No!” he called back defiantly. “No it’s not! It’s not you!”  
John reached the level floor and ran back inside, but he suddenly realized there was nowhere else to turn. He could try the fire escape! He could hope he’d snap out of whatever hallucination he was in and tread back down the steps! He could take his chances and jump out the window! What’s the worst that could happen if he did that?  
He approached the window in his friend’s bedroom and cracked it open. His hands hesitated for a moment, but as soon as he heard his name called again, he continued. He propped the window open and peered down at the alley below. He could do this.  
But as his first foot stepped up to the sill, a strong, familiar hand gripped his elbow tightly and held him back. The doctor held his breath and closed his eyes. Wake up, John! It’s just another dream!  
And then another hand held his shoulder, pressed gently into his skin, and urged him back. If this was a ghost, John could no longer care. It was Sherlock’s ghost, and it was the most comfort he’d felt in years.  
“John, please. It’s me.”  
Slowly John’s tension eased, his hands let go of the window frame, and he breathed again. “No, it’s not.”  
“Of course it is, you idiot. Who else could it be?”  
John turned cautiously, fully expecting to see a transparent figure of skulls and bones or something else directly from a low-budget horror film. But no. If this was a hallucination, it was the most vivid John had ever known.  
“No,” he whispered. “It can’t be. You’re dead.”  
“It would seem not,” Sherlock returned with a smile as he released his grip. “I’m here, John. Really.”  
The doctor fell onto the bed and expelled the breath he’d been holding back. His eyes watered, but he pushed the tears aside so that his vision wasn’t blurry, so that he could see Sherlock fully, clearly. How could it be him?   
“I saw you die, Sherlock.”  
“You saw what I needed you to see.”  
“No, Sherlock. I identified your body. I was there at your funeral. I watched them put you in the ground.”  
“I’m here, John. How else can I convince you that I am, in fact, flesh and blood?”  
“Come here,” John whispered. “I’ll tell you exactly how.”  
Sherlock stepped toward the bed as John stood in front of him. Their faces were only inches apart now, close enough so that John could survey every bit of Sherlock, recalling the scar John himself had put on Sherlock’s left cheek.  
“It’s m—”  
Suddenly, John’s fist met with Sherlock’s mouth before the detective could finish his sentence.  
“You ass! You piece of shit!” John exploded, shaking off the sharp pain radiating through his hand.  
“What the hell?”  
“You can’t just come back after all this time and tell me you’re alive! You can’t do that! How did you even know I was here? Did you follow me? Well, did you?”  
“John, I…”  
“No, you know what? I don’t want any of your explanations or excuses, Sherlock! I was always there for you through everything! I never left you, not once! Any time you needed anything from me, I gave it to you! And this is how you treat me? You couldn’t even tell me you were alive?”  
In a moment, John was gone, and Sherlock sat upon his bed for a moment before deciding he should chase after, just as he always did.  
By the time Sherlock reached the street, however, John was gone. He’d grabbed a cab and driven off. But Sherlock knew where he was going. He knew exactly where.  
John arrived at the graveyard and headed directly for the tall black tombstone he had visited nearly every day for the past three years. He’d always come here after a bad night, and he would stand beside the stone and receive consolation from his friend who wasn’t there. John had confessed everything here. He had told all his secrets, cried when he’d never cried in front of anyone, and softly caressed the grooves in the stone as if to touch his good friend one more time.  
“You’re not even here!” he yelled as he took his usual spot. “I’ve been talking to you for three bloody years, and you were never even here!” Finally, the doctor could no longer take the heaving anger, frustration, and sorrow, and he fell to his knees under the weight of it. “Sherlock, why the hell didn’t you tell me? I told you so much. I told you my heart. I trusted you.” He wiped away the tears he could no longer hold back. “Why, Sherlock? Tell me why.”  
“Because I was protecting you.”  
John jumped up with a start. “Jesus! Do you follow me everywhere?”  
“Almost,” Sherlock responded.  
“Get away from me,” John cried. “I can’t do this now.”  
“Hear me out, John…”  
“No! No! Go away!”  
“You were right, John. You told me everything. But I was here. I heard it all, every time. I always heard you.”  
John’s eyes looked into Sherlock’s, really looked for the first time.  
“You said those things, John, and I – I didn’t know how to respond. You must understand that no one has ever said those things to me before. I never knew how you felt until that moment you first came here.”  
John placed his hand inside his pockets as the cold air beat against them. “Some genius you are, then,” he chuckled. But then he corrected himself and erased the smile, reminding them both that he was still sore.  
“I had to take that fall, John. I did it for you. I don’t expect you to understand, but I was saving your life. And yes, I have been following you. I have been watching over you, because I was protecting you.”  
“From what?”  
“From anything and everything,” Sherlock smiled. “From exactly all the things that got to you anyway. I couldn’t help that.”  
“You could have. If you had told me you were alive, I wouldn’t have had those horrifying days and nights.”  
“And if I had known, I would have told you. I didn’t know until you returned to your therapist.”  
“You followed me there, too?”  
“I told you, I followed you everywhere, John. I never left you. And I never will.”  
John sighed and took a step toward his friend. “You are real, aren’t you?”  
“As ever,” Sherlock replied.  
“This,” John began as he reached his hands to touch the man, “Is you.”  
“All of it.”  
John’s hands slid around the detective’s waist, crept along his back, and held him tightly against his own body.   
“John, what….”  
“Shut up,” John said. “Just… shut up.”

**Author's Note:**

> Written in response to a post on tumblr.


End file.
